Thursday, October 7, 2010

I'm marrying my brother next Friday

No, not in the icky sense but in the I'm-officiating-the-ceremony-where-he-marries-his-fiancée kind of way. It's perfectly legal in Quebec and all I have to be is Canadian and speak one of the official languages. Papers are signed and passports are photocopied. So here I am, an official officiant.

The ceremony is next week and I still have no speech. In fact, I'm feeling some pressure. A lot of pressure, actually. You've all experienced my writing. I'm often irreverent, flip, casual and sometimes even funny. Everything you don't want in your wedding ceremony. I've already realized I have to write down what I'm going to say. When I'm speaking off the cuff I often lose my train of thought and derail into the weeds of babbling nonsense. It's not a pretty sight. A trainwreck, if you will.

So I've been putting the speech-writing off for weeks trying to think of something sweet and touching but with just the right amount of Karen in it to make it genuine. My brother's fiancée doesn't want religion brought into it so no Bible readings and since it's not traditional, I'm also staying away from Shakespeare. So that's what I don't want.

What I do want is to say something nice about their relationship. Unfortunately I don't know much about it besides that they've been together around 10 years. I can't even be specific about that. If this was a Best (Wo)Man's speech I could go on and on about his drunken adventures but I'm thinking a wedding ceremony isn't the place to bring up the time where, on a bet, he drank the cigarette ash and condiment cocktail my friends and I were absently dropping in the bottom of a half finished beer glass.

So what do I say? I've been googling for days looking for something generic yet tender, funny yet clever and completely memorable. Something they can look back on in 10 years and smile and not grimace. Got anything like that off the top of your head? I need it by Friday. Thanks.

kxx

2 comments:

flask said...

karen, don't worry about it.

if your brother wanted someone with different style than you, he'd have gotten something else.

i have read enough of your blog posts to know that you know something about love and marriage and life and of stringing together thoughts so they're interesting.

just start writing and you'll be fine.

April said...

I agree with flask. Your writing and personality are great, so just be yourself!